Military chopper on chopping block?

The Air Force combat rescue helicopter has powerful allies on Capitol Hill — and one is already vowing to fight for the program if it’s left out of the service’s sequester-size budget.

“I would work against any substantial cuts in that program,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told POLITICO.

Story Continued Below

The Connecticut Democrat said he’d “heard some reports” the Air Force is planning to scrap a program to replace its aging combat search-and-rescue helicopters if Congress fails to stave off future rounds of sequestration, but he hadn’t verified that with the Pentagon.

The Air Force’s entire combat search-and-rescue mission — carried out by aging Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters — could disappear or be scaled back under an alternative budget scenario being developed inside the Pentagon to explain how the services would handle sequestration in fiscal 2015, according to Defense News.

The alternative budget scenario includes no funding for new combat rescue helicopters, nor does it include funding to modernize the old Pave Hawks, Defense News reported, citing unnamed defense sources.

This is the latest leak from a Pentagon that appears eager to make public some of its plans for absorbing sharp, automatic spending cuts in future years.

The tactic is a break from years past, when military officials were notoriously tight-lipped about their budget plans, with program officials frequently telling reporters they couldn’t comment on future spending levels because they were under a “cone of silence.”

So far, the leak strategy has been effective in rallying members of Congress against planned cuts that would be required under sequestration.

The problem: Some lawmakers have responded by trying to save specific programs that would face the ax under a sequester-size budget — one of several budget scenarios being developed for fiscal 2015 — rather than working to stop the automatic cuts altogether.

Powerful senators are already going to bat for the combat rescue helicopters, which are designed to swoop in and save U.S. service members trapped or wounded in war zones.

“Now is the time to replace these aircraft,” Blumenthal and Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others wrote in a letter earlier this month to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense.

The Air Force has been working to replace its current fleet for more than a decade, but the program has struggled to get off the ground.

“The bigger issue for the Air Force is whether it can afford the entire program while facing decreasing defense spending coupled with sequestration,” the senators wrote, warning that cuts to the program in the Senate’s defense budget for the current fiscal year could “jeopardize” support for the entire program, “given the competing budgetary demands.”

“After two failed competitions for new aircraft, we believe the Air Force has finally put together an acquisition strategy that can succeed,” they wrote.

The Air Force’s combat rescue helicopter program calls for more than 100 new helicopters to replace its aging fleet. Only one contractor team has said it’s vying to supply the helicopters: Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin, which are offering a modified version of Sikorsky’s Black Hawk.

Sikorsky is owned by United Technologies, which is based in Connecticut and has a major impact on the state’s economy. Connecticut ranks second among the states in terms of per capita spending on defense contracts, behind only Virginia, according to a POLITICO analysis. And its congressional delegation is fiercely defensive of its military programs.

Word has also leaked out of the Pentagon that the Air Force could have to divest its fleet of A-10 Warthogs if Congress is unable to avert sequestration in future years, resulting in an effort led by Sen. Kelly Ayotte to make it difficult for the service to retire the close air support aircraft.

The New Hampshire Republican, whose husband was an A-10 pilot, is pushing an amendment to this year’s defense authorization bill that wouldn’t allow the Air Force to retire or prepare for retirement its A-10s until the Air Force variant of the F-35 Lightning II reaches full operational capability — something that isn’t expected until 2021.

On other programs, the service chiefs have been open about what’s at stake under future rounds of sequestration.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert has said that without action to stave off sequestration or provide the Pentagon additional ability to shift funds around within its budget, the Navy could have to cancel the planned procurement of at least one Virginia-class submarine, a littoral combat ship and an afloat forward staging base.

And Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno has warned Congress that the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle would be at risk of delay or cancellation if lawmakers fail to stave off sequestration.

“It is imperative that Congress take action to mitigate and ease sequestration reductions,” Odierno told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month.

Testimony from top brass about future budget plans appears to have had the desired effect on Democrats and Republicans alike, including Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the committee’s top Republican.

“The men and women charged with protecting this nation are being undermined,” Inhofe said. “Ronald Reagan is probably rolling over in his grave right now seeing what’s happened to the military strength in this country.”